Sally-Part 39. SCOUNDRELS ALL!

MY FAVOURITE PICTURE OF "SALLY"!

Freed from her tyrannical husband at the age of fifty nine, Sally went out and bought an upright piano for twenty quid and started to give lessons to various neighbours' children which was quite odd as she couldn't actually play a note herself!

My father's early death gave my mother's curtailed eccentricities full reign.

Both house and garden descended quite quickly through general untidiness, unkemptness and eventually into a  parlous state, although Sally didn't notice and wouldn't trust a home-help to restore some kind of order in case she messed things up!

She got burgled and fleeced and robbed outright by youths seeing her pushing her stolen trolley and offering to help, only to take her purse. Worst of all was the apparently pregnant  woman who, seeing Sally working in her front garden asked for a drink of water, only to follw her into the house and steal her money.

I'm being specific here because during one crisis meeting of all the brothers at the house, there was a ring on the front door and I opened it to who I could only presume was the same woman pleading for the same glass of water ,who when I challenged her, ran for it, jumping into a car driven by her partner and sped off but not before Sally's nightmare of a lodger, of whom more shortly, noted the registration number.

The policeman who came almost immediately explained that this was a known gang targeting old people across the south-east and that as the number plate was false, they would get away with another despicable attempt!

Another time, my mother heard breaking glass and went to the hall to find a large "foreigner" ( colour or ethnicity not allowed due to political correctness ) standing with bleeding knuckles who then ran passed her out the back door and away! Very odd.

The lodger, a towering motorbike dispatch rider, prone to fits of manic-depression and violence was recommended to her by a neighbour who as a doctor should have known better. He eventually managed to smash up the kitchen after a row with his girlfriend. Fortunately Sally wasn't at home and the lodger got his marching orders.

My mother's counter to the dangers of an old woman living on her own in a large house was to put up a card beside her doorbell listing fictitious flat numbers and tenants.

How stupid! But the funny thing is that it seemed to work.
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Time passed and Sally, approaching her eighties became progressively weak and breathless and on one visit I left the house to phone get agreement from my eldest brother that something had to be done and that I would start the ball rolling by talking to her doctor.

She desperately needed help and care and her doctor told me, quite wrongly that it was none of my business and there was no way on earth that she could be removed to the safety of a hospital without a full team of medical experts assessing her and that had she listened to the doctor's advice she would have reduced her under-active thyroid tablets from four a day to one quarter.

So who was prescribing a dose of sixteen times the correct amount? You can't buy the tablets. Another quandry to go unexamined I suspect!

The doctor also told me that my mother was a very strong-willed and awkward person to deal with but because of my concern a nurse would be sent round to visit.

 And why not the doctor?

The horrified nurse immediately called for the rest of the team but as Sally was on the point of collapse anyway, she was taken straight to hospital and her FIRST death-bed!